"Hah!" muttered Bandolo, as his hand was covertly and almost involuntarily raised to the hilt of his murderous poniard. "But there is no saying what we may achieve if your scheme for the passage of the Elbe is a good one," said Tilly, with a smile in his ferret eyes, as he rubbed his lean legs, which were cased in fustian breeches. "I have learned (_how_, matters not, señor conde) that Rupert-with-the-red-plume has in his hands two Danish prisoners--Scots----" "Mai hayas tu! Scots again!--hah--he told me not of _that_!" "They were saved from the sconce at Boitzenburg." "Yet I said that all there should die; and, had this order been obeyed, we should not now have to storm either the castle of Lauenburg or that of Bredenburg. Ah, those Presbyterians!" added Tilly, grinding his fangless jaws; "if I had but a few of them enveloped in pitch and sulphur, they would light our bivouac, even as the early Christians were made into candles to light the Roman circus. But quick--your scheme!" continued Tilly, while the supposed scraping of rats was again heard beneath the bed. "Obtain these two Scots, and march them with the troops against Lauenberg. Approach in the night, and make one betray his comrades." "How betray? thou laughest at me again, Bandolo, knowing well that these Scottish heretics are stubborn as their native rocks." "Lead them within earshot of their sentinels, and then place a loaded pistol to the head of each." "Good--I'll see to it!" grinned Tilly, with one of his horrible smiles, which might have frightened even the dead; "but where, in the name of good and evil, are the two Scots you speak of?" At that moment, as the devil would have it, a tremendous sneeze was heard under the bed. "Madre de Dios! there is some one concealed here!" exclaimed little Tilly, starting up with lire glaring in his eyes, as he unsheathed his long rapier. "Look under that bed, Bandolo, while I prick the tapestry." Drawing his poniard, Bandolo raised the little curtain which surrounded the rails of the bed, on looking below which he was instantly grasped and dragged down by the strong hands of Dandy Dreghorn, who (rendered desperate by finding discovery inevitable, and knowing that we had but two assailants) encircled the bull-neck of the powerful Spanish ruffian with a tiger-like clutch, and rolled him on the floor, shouting-- "Strike in, Maister Rollo--strike in, for gudesake! Gie that auld wallydraigel in the breeks a jagg wi your dirk, while I pu' this ane through the heckle-pins!" Taken completely by surprise, Bandolo was almost smothered by the dust under the bed, where he was so suddenly and ignominiously rolled. He struck furiously and at random with his poniard till the blade broke against the oak planks of the floor, down upon which Dandy pressed his throat until he was nearly strangled, vociferating all the time--